Now she folded her napkin and laid it on the table. “Percy, I think it’s time for you to present your proposal.”
Percy picked up their plates. “I’ll wash these up first. Privy’s outside if you care to use it. Select any tree and be careful of the chiggers. Well water’s drawn and towels beside it. We’ll finish up the wine on the porch.”
She was feeling too logy to argue, like a contented, well-fed cat. She strolled outside into the green stillness of the waning afternoon and found herself a private spot, washed and dried her hands at the well, then returned to the porch, where Percy was pouring out the last of the wine. Shaded by cypress trees, the porch had been built to catch the lake breezes and screened to protect against mosquitoes.
“I don’t need any more of that,” she objected, drawing out the chain of her lapel watch. “It’s after three o’clock. I really do need to get back.”
“What for?” Percy asked. “Can’t Hoagy handle things?”
“Hoagy has to be supervised. He’s too fond of visiting and taking coffee breaks.”
“The joys of running a plantation, huh?”
“Let’s not ruin a perfect picnic by bringing that up, Percy.”
“Oh, but I have to. The plantation’s the main point of my proposal.”
Mary tensed. Here it comes, she thought. Another ruin to another perfect day together. “And what is that?” she asked.
“Well, I’ve been doing some reconsidering of what’s important—what I can live with and what I can’t live without. And I’ve decided”—he swirled the wine in his glass with utmost attention—“that I can live with a weevil-infested plantation, but I can’t live without you.”
Mary strained to make sense of his words, sure she’d heard him incorrectly. “What… are you saying, Percy?”
“I want us to get married—just as we are… I, a lumberman, and you, a planter.”
She felt her eyes grow as large as the Willow Wood plates. “You mean you’d take us both—me and Somerset?” It wasn’t possible, she thought. Her ears were tricking her.
Percy turned his face to her. “That’s what I’m proposing. Will you marry me if I’ll promise to back off with my objections to Somerset and accept things as they are?”
Still, she could not trust her ears. “I don’t believe it,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper.
He set down his glass and held out his hand to her. “Believe it, Mary. I love you.”
Cautiously, she laid her hand on the large surface of his palm. “What’s caused this change?”
“Seeing what’s happening to you. And to me.” His fingers closed around her hand. “How many more burdens do you think you can bear alone? How many more years can I go on alone, without you? Our days are filled from dawn to dusk, honey, but our lives are empty.”
“What about… all the things you said you needed in a wife? Someone who’ll put you and the children first?”
“Well, maybe that will happen, but I promise I won’t go into our marriage counting on it. If I can’t come home to you, then you can come home to me. Simply living together, married, under one roof will be enough for me, I promise.”
Disbelief still constrained her joy. “But you’re doing all the compromising. What do I have to give up? What do I have to promise?”
His hand tightened. “You have to promise that if Somerset fails, you’ll let it go. That will be the end of the matter. No coming to me for money to save it. It will be hard to say no to you, but I will, and you must promise that my refusal will not affect our marriage. You know how I feel about growing cotton. I consider plantations such as yours a losing proposition whose time has come and gone.”
She reached forward with her free hand and pressed her fingertips to his mouth. “You don’t have to say any more, Percy. I know how you feel and, no, I wouldn’t expect you to come to my rescue. It would be a violation of the rule we’ve always lived by.”
“Then you promise?” he asked, looking as if he held his own joy in abeyance until she gave her word.
“Of course I promise,” she cried, scooting out of her chair like a child ready for a romp. “Percy… do you really mean it?”
“I really mean it,” he said, laughing. “You haven’t said yes, by the way.”
Mary knelt before him and flung her arms around his neck. “Yes, yes, yes!” she shouted between hard, quick kisses on his mouth. God was smiling upon her at last. “Oh, Percy,” she said, “I’ve wondered for such a long time what it would be like to be married to you.”
“Well,” he said, “let me get out of this chair, and I’ll show you.”
Chapter Twenty-four
He carried her into the curtained bedroom. She noticed the crisp sheets as he laid her upon the bed. He’d planned for her seduction, she thought, not minding at all, only relieved that she was soon to be with the only man who could quiet the beast prowling inside her. “Percy…,” she said in a small voice, “I am…”
“Afraid?” he said, unbuttoning her blouse. “Don’t be.”
“But I don’t know what to do….”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll find our way together.”
And they did. Hours later, when the room had darkened and the moon risen, she lay in his arms along the comforting length of his body and said, “You know what it felt like?”
“No, my love,” he said, smoothing her hair. “Tell me.”
“Home. It felt like coming home.”
“You are home,” he said.
Toward dawn, he took her hand and led her outside to the shower rigged in a screen of pine trees and together they stood naked beneath its flow, Mary squealing and splashing to Percy’s deep laughter. This is Eden, she thought, and we are Adam and Eve. Were there ever a man and woman so made for each other? After a while, she ran her hands up the bronzed breadth of his chest and whispered, “Percy,” with urgency, and he led her back to the cabin.
When morning came, he made them breakfast—bacon, eggs, and the peaches and cream they’d forgone the day before. Mary ate ravenously, her appetite soaring. Afterward, as they dressed, Percy said, “At least I’ve got a change of clothes to make this look good when I drive you to Hoagy’s, but what about you?”
Mary touched the collar of her blouse and looked down at her brown riding skirt. “This is my everyday costume when I’m not filling in for somebody in the fields. Hoagy won’t notice that I’ve not changed.”
Loath to leave, she gazed at the lake from the screened porch, and Percy came to stand behind her, pushing his face into her hair. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “You were very considerate.”
“There will be some tenderness. I’ll bring by a salve this afternoon.”
“You won’t be able to find me. I don’t know yet what sections I’ll be inspecting.”
His arms tensed slightly. “Tonight, then. Will you be home?”
“Yes, I’ll make a point of it. I’ll have supper for us, and… you can stay. Toby won’t be around. Thursday he spends the night at his brother’s. They go fishing.”
His hold tightened, and her blood pounded. “I’ll leave the car and walk down,” he said, his voice husky. He turned her around and lifted her chin, his thumb caressing its cleft. “Are you happy, Mary?”
“More than I ever thought possible,” she said. She touched his face in wonder. It was somewhat bristly now, the blond hair hardly visible. Her breath caught in her throat. This was love, she thought, not lust. How could she ever have been so afraid of loving him? They would work out their differences. They needed each other. She would be good to him. He would never be sorry that he had married her. Desire rose in her, mindless of the throbbing rawness left by their lovemaking. If she didn’t leave now, she never would, and she had to get back to Hoagy. She stepped away. “We must go, Percy. If I’m much later, Hoagy will suspect something, and I’m sure he hasn’t fed Shawnee.”
Percy watched her tie back her hair. “D
o you think we could discuss a wedding date tonight, honey? I want us to get married as soon as possible.”
Her hands fell. She turned toward him with a desolate face. It had not occurred to her that he would want to marry before the cotton was brought in. A wedding wasn’t possible, not with all the preparations it would entail. From now on, she must spend every day, every working hour, at Somerset. “I… thought we’d wait until after the harvest,” she said, her expression pleading with him not to be wounded that she must put him off. “So much is riding on this one, as you know. It has to make. There can be no delays, no interference. I’ll have to be at the plantation constantly. I… thought you agreed to understand.”
He swallowed, and she saw the hard knot of disappointment slide down the strong column of his neck. “Well, then, when do you foresee would be a good time?”
“The end of October?”
“The end of October! That’s a long time away, Mary.”
“I know.” She slipped her arms up around his neck. “But it will come. In the meantime, if we’re discreet, we can be together. And I’ll make the delay up to you, I promise. I love you.”
Surrendering, Percy closed his arms around her. “All right,” he said, “but I wish it were tomorrow. I have a feeling that it’s a mistake to wait.”
“It would be a mistake not to wait,” Mary said. “That way, there will be time to plan a beautiful wedding and prenuptial activities and have a proper honeymoon. We can relax. You’ll see.”
April ended, then May, both dry and hot. Mary worried. But at the beginning of June, shortly before the bolls released their white treasure, a soft rain fell, soaking the cotton plants with the right amount of moisture to succor their thirst. Providence continued to shine, but Mary rose every morning with a tightness in her chest. If only the rain held off now, and all other forms of disaster, then the final chapter of the Tolivers’ long adversity would end.
Cautious about her happiness, she could not resist imagining the harvest in, the mortgage almost paid, money in the bank. She could begin her marriage to Percy on a clean page, and as long as he abided by his promise, she would make sure he never suffered because of Somerset. She would juggle her time and energies, beginning with the hiring of a manager to relieve her of some of her duties. She’d scour the state, if need be, to find a replacement for the lazy and unreliable Hoagy Carter.
Already, they were planning their life together. They would live in the Toliver mansion. That would please the senior Warwicks immensely, having their son and daughter-in-law and eventually all the little Warwicks a few houses away. Percy had immediate plans after the marriage to install electricity and a telephone, by God! Bathrooms were to be added, the kitchen modernized, and the carriage house converted into a garage. The overhaul included the rose garden and grounds and new paint for the exterior. They would keep Sassie and Toby on, of course, but they would hire extra staff, and Percy was adamant they employ a bookkeeper to free Mary from her ledgers when she was home.
Their main concern became keeping the comings and goings of their meetings—and couplings—secret. Mary made no bones to Percy about the importance of safeguarding her reputation from sexual scandal. People might frown at her because she didn’t atone for her father’s favoritism, but never did they look down their noses. She was a Toliver! But her name would not save her if it was discovered that she was sleeping with a man out of wedlock, and certainly Percy did not want it suspected that he’d bedded his wife before he married her.
Therefore they schemed their liaisons and hideaways carefully. Most often, they met in Percy’s isolated cabin by the lake. Not a soul suspected the activities going on behind the rough plank door. With the harvest at hand, the returned Sassie assumed that Mary was spending every night she was absent from home at the Ledbetter house. Hoagy believed his mistress was turning Shawnee toward Houston Avenue at the end of a long, hot day, oddly happier now, more filled out, some flesh on her bones at last.
Thursday evenings they spent at the Toliver mansion when both Sassie and Toby were out for the night, hardly allowing themselves enough time to eat the simple supper Mary had prepared before they dashed up the stairs to her bedroom, shedding clothes as they went. Mary, once living only for her days at Somerset, now lived for her nights with Percy.
Only Sunday afternoons could they bear to share, and these were with Ollie and Charles Waithe, who made a fourth for bridge. Though Mary could hardly endure them, the Sunday occasions were necessary as subterfuge. She was sure that simply by glancing at her and Percy, the others would know where the two of them would rather be. It was agony to sit at the table with him, sometimes as partner, sometimes as opponent, sensually aware of his every movement while unable to risk a smile or even a look in his direction. The afternoons stretched interminably, and it was always with huge relief that she heard the grandfather clock strike the hour for her guests to leave.
Despite his objections, Percy came to see the prudence of keeping their intention to marry secret for a while. Secrecy protected them from speculation about the extent of their intimacy, which Mary lived in fear of being exposed. They both agreed that there would be no end to Beatrice’s flurry once she learned of a wedding at hand, and, of course, there was Ollie to consider.
They had discussed Ollie at length. “He has to be told soon, Mary,” Percy said.
“Why?”
“Because he’s in love with you, you beautiful simpleton. He’s loved you as long as I have.”
“I suspected so once, but I thought his feelings had mellowed to friendship.”
“Believe me, they haven’t. If I’d thought there was the slightest chance you’d return his love, I’d never have pursued you. If it weren’t for Ollie, I’d be lying in a French grave by now.”
“I know,” Mary said, gripped by the usual chill at the thought. “Do you think he still holds on to his hope?”
“Not consciously, but until a ring is on your finger, a part of him will believe he has a chance.”
“Give me until the middle of August, then buy me a ring,” Mary said.
Chapter Twenty-five
It was the end of the second week in August. The time had come to make the first pass at the fields. “Monday morning at daybreak,” Mary informed her tenants the Saturday before picking began. “Get plenty of rest tomorrow. On Monday we’ll start on the south and work east. Tuesday, from west to north. Be ready to leave in your wagons by four-thirty.”
That Sunday afternoon, Mary was too restless to play bridge and overbid her hand twice. “I hope that’s not an omen,” Ollie commented.
Mary interpreted the remark as full of insinuation. “What do you mean?” she demanded, her sharp tone like the crack of a whip in the quiet, tense room, and all three men turned their heads to her in surprise.
“I was referring to the outcome of the game,” Ollie said with a quiet smile of apology. “You must have thought I was referring to the harvest. It was a stupid thing to say tonight of all nights. I’m sure you have everything in hand out at Somerset. I predict that by this time next Sunday, you’ll be the happiest woman in the county.”
“Let’s drink to that,” Charles said, quickly filling their glasses with champagne smuggled down the block from the DuMont wine cellar. Prohibition was for those who had voted for it, was their mutual opinion. As usual, Mary declined, but she lifted her water glass. “To our queen of cotton,” Charles said. “May it always be king!”
“Here! Here!” they chorused, and clinked glasses. But Ollie’s remark had put an end to any pretense of enjoying the evening. It had thrown into relief the burning question always at the forefront of her mind these days: Had she overbid her hand?
She pleaded an early rise the next morning and sent her guests home before the normal time, including Percy, who usually returned after everyone had gone. “I’m as nervous as a cat in a roomful of rockers,” she explained to him out of earshot of the others, and he squeezed her arm in understanding.
&
nbsp; It was the stillness that woke her a few hours after midnight. Bolting upright in bed, she listened, sniffing the air. She threw back the covers and unlatched the French doors to the verandah off her room. “Oh, no!” she cried in mouth-drying horror. Far off to the east where Somerset lay, jagged lances of lightning split the night sky. There was the smell of rain, the distant crack of thunder. And something else. Mary sniffed. Dust hung in the still air. Oh, God, no! Don’t do this to me. Please, God. Don’t do this to me. Papa, Thomas—help me!
Her heart was threatening to leap from her body as she tore back inside, taking time only to lace on her boots and grab a robe before running downstairs.
She bridled Shawnee and leaped onto his back in her nightclothes, spurring the gelding with her boot heels out of the stable and down the sleeping boulevard to the back road that led toward the plantation. “Go, boy!” Mary urged the aging horse, bending low over his flowing mane to aid his speed. Her mind cleared as they raced through the night. The tenants knew what to do. Only this week she’d given each family their instructions in case of rain. Yes’m, Miss Mary, we all goin’ to get out in them fields with our sacks and start pickin’ fast as we can. When them raindrops start fallin’, we goin’ run get our sacks under the tarps in the wagons.
Hoagy was up and had marshaled his family. Thank God both his grown sons were home, one on furlough from the army and the other looking for a job, cotton sacks already slung over their shoulders. “Mornin’, Miss Mary,” they said, pretending not to notice that she was still in her nightgown and robe.
“How bad, Hoagy?”
Hoagy shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, Miss Mary.”
“Give me a sack.”
The night was still pitch black when the Carter family, seven in all, and Mary, each taking a row, began picking cotton. Not a drop of rain had fallen, but lightning still lit up the sky and dust clung in the air. She prayed for wind. It was the stillness that terrified her. Far across and down the long, stretching fields, she saw the wink of kerosene lamps and kerchiefed heads bobbing low and steady over the sea of white bolls, hands plucking swiftly and expertly while the night sky urged, Hurry, hurry, hurry.